Demons
by Lunamionny
Summary: It's nearly a year since the war ended but the hostility between Gryffindor and Slytherin houses still stirs within Hogwarts like an insidious poison. When Ginny and Blaise keep colliding in the most inappropriate of circumstances, can the demons they recognise in each other help them breach the darkness that separates them? Written for Sing-Me-A-Rare Vol 3. Runner up: Best Smut
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **

Huge love to my beta ABrighterDarkness.  
Song Prompt: 'Demons' by Imagine Dragons

WARNINGS: A major character death occurs before the time of this fic, so it's not depicted in detail but it has repercussions for the characters within this fic. Hence, grief is a theme. Additionally, there is about five seconds of dubcon, depending on how you interpret it (which I guess is the point of the word 'dubious'...).

* * *

**Chapter 1: Don't get too close, it's dark inside**

_"When you feel my heat / Look into my eyes / It's where my demons hide / It's where my demons hide / Don't get too close / It's dark inside / It's where my demons hide / It's where my demons hide' - Demons, Imagine Dragons._

It started with fellatio. At least, that's when it started for Ginny. Blaise would later admit that, for him, it had started long before.

It was the summer term of her seventh year and Ginny was patrolling the basement corridors on her own. Other prefects had offered to come with her but Ginny had wanted to wander the dim, quiet hallways by herself. For many months now, she had sought comfort in solitude and darkness.

She was walking past the entrance to the kitchens when she heard it: a gasp. Followed by a low, guttural moan. She halted, tuning into the sounds, trying to gauge where they were coming from. The moan was followed by a muffled whisper, then some scuffling. Ginny surmised that the noises were coming from a large alcove that was hidden behind a tapestry hanging opposite the kitchen door.

With her wand drawn by her side, she pushed the tapestry aside and ducked quietly around it. A wall mounted torch gave off enough diffuse light for Ginny to take in the scene before her. A scene which caused her to inhale sharply and freeze in disbelief.

Blaise Zabini was standing facing her, with his head tilted back and eyes closed. His lips were parted slightly and his shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a dark expanse of chest and stomach. At his feet, with her back to Ginny, knelt a girl, her head bobbing back and forth at the level of Zabini's crotch. The girl had short blond hair and Ginny didn't recognise her. At least, not from this angle.

Ginny knew she should be saying something - doing something - _stopping_ _it_. But her eyes had adjusted to the gloom and she was able to make out the muscular contours of Zabini's bare torso. And she couldn't look away. The sight of it seemed to render her motionless. And she had an inexplicable urge to touch it - him. To run her fingers along the hard edges of him.

When she finally wrenched her eyes away and flicked them up to Zabini's face, her heart nearly stopped. Because his head was now upright and he was looking straight at her. Again, she tried to speak - to attempt to stop it, like she should be doing. But there were no words on her tongue, they all seemed to be trapped somewhere deep in her stomach. She just carried on staring back at Zabini whilst the girl at his feet, oblivious to Ginny's presence, maintained her rhythmic head movements.

As she continued to look into Zabini's glazed eyes and hear his quickened, gasping breath, Ginny felt a fluttering of something deep within her, something she didn't want to acknowledge. Then, to her mortification, Zabini's lips curled up into a mocking half-smile. The next minute, the kneeling girl seemed to change her pace or technique or something, because Zabini's eyelids fluttered shut again and he let low moan.

"Fuck...that feels good..." he murmured and Ginny felt a fleeting, absurd feeling of jealousy. Because a traitorous part of _her_ wanted to be the one making Zabini gasp and moan - with her lips and her touch and her tongue. Disgusted by her own thoughts, Ginny quickly pushed them down into the corners of her mind.

Zabini's groans had become louder and his limbs seemed to twitch involuntarily. Seeming to know he was close to the edge, the unknown girl slowed her movements.

"Fu..." Whatever Zabini had attempted to say turned into an incoherent succession of groans.

Moments later, when it was finally finished, the girl pulled her head back, looking up at Zabini. But again, he was pointedly staring at Ginny, causing the nameless girl to turn and follow his gaze. Her eyes widened as she saw the Gryffindor prefect and she scrambled to her feet, scowling furiously, looking sharply from Zabini to Ginny. Ginny still didn't recognise her.

"What the _fuck_?" short-blond-hair exclaimed.

Zabini, who had calmly started to tuck himself back into his boxers, merely shrugged nonchalantly at the girl's questioning look. Before Ginny had managed to assemble her thoughts into a coherent response, the girl huffed indignantly and stormed away, past Ginny and behind the tapestry. Zabini had finished casually buttoning himself back up and started to saunter away too, directing his gaze straight ahead.

"Enjoy the show?" he asked sardonically.

His words and tone finally awakened the lioness in Ginny. She fumed - at Zabini's arrogance and shamelessness, yes, but also at herself - at her reaction to the whole sordid event. Or rather, at her lack of action.

"Ten points from Slytherin," she clipped. Then hated herself for it. Because it sounded so prim and prudish. And not a little pathetic. Especially after everything that had happened at this school last year. After the rules they had had to break then. After what they had been made to do to each other.

Zabini halted mid-stride at her words. He'd been in the process of walking past Ginny so had come to a stop right next to her, but facing the opposite direction. Ginny heard him chuckle. Clearly, he thought her statement was as stuffy and priggish as she did.

Ginny went to step forward in order to get away from him, but Zabini's arm came out in front of her at waist height, strong and solid, and she walked into it, her path blocked. She could have easily moved it, with her own strength or magic. Could have easily gotten away, but for some reason she again found her feet anchored to the floor like the roots of a hundred-year-old oak tree.

"You know," Zabini's voice was slow and contemplative. She could tell he'd turned his head to look at her, could feel the heat of his breath inches from her ear, but she kept her gaze straight ahead. "What that girl did with her tongue was _obscene..._but you know what really got me off?"

Ginny didn't answer - couldn't. Because, again, it was like she'd forgotten how to speak, much like her heart had forgotten how to beat. Zabini kept his arm stretched across her waist, as if in some kind of bizarre restraint - or embrace? Ginny didn't know anymore.

"You watching," Zabini answered his own question, his voice sultry. "You could have stopped that. But you didn't. I saw how your cheeks flushed as you watched us - me. You were as complicit in that blow job as that girl was. It may as well have been _your_ lips around my cock."

Zabini's words seemed to travel into Ginny's body and strum over parts of her as if they were playing her like an instrument. Ginny hated her body in that moment. Hated it for the way it was betraying her.

She stayed stock-still, staring ahead, because she didn't know what would happen if she turned to look at him. She had contradictory urges of spitting in his face, or conversely, crashing her lips on to his in a desperate kiss. With a concerted effort, she summoned her thoughts to form something coherent, and forced her next words out.

"Fine. Keep your points," she conceded, her voice firm but hoarse. It seemed her mouth had gone dry. She willed him to leave, to move away from her because for some reason _she_ seemed incapable of walking away from him. But Ginny sensed him lean even closer to her.

"Good girl," he said softly, his mouth so close to her ear she was sure his lips brushed against it. His voice was so low the air seemed to vibrate from it, and the vibrations seemed to continue into her, rippling through her body and flooding it with warmth. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly, no doubt giving away the effect he was having on her.

"You know, I've seen you watching me all year. But every time I come near, you run. Why do you run, Weasley?" His voice was taunting and the realisation that he'd noticed her frequent, furtive glances at him mortified Ginny.

"Is it because of my reputation?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious. Ginny made a slight movement with her shoulders - a half shrug.

"Not that then...is it because the colours of my tie are green and silver?" His hand, which had been hovering just above her left hip, moved and he slowly ran his fingers over her pelvic bone. So slowly - as if he had his whole life to explore her body and he was just starting on that one little part.

"Partly," Ginny managed to answer. Despite the reconciliation efforts, the hostility between Gryffindor and Slytherin houses still stirred within Hogwarts like an insidious poison.

"Because I was on the wrong side of the war?" Zabini suggested, his voice wary now.

Ginny finally managed to turn her head to look at him. She could feel the heat of his arm burning across her waist and when she looked into his eyes, she realised she must have caught him off-guard. Because she saw something in them - something vulnerable shifting around behind the irises. And she knew then: she knew there were demons inside him as well.

She wondered how long he'd been fighting them.

"Yes," Ginny admitted.

Zabini turned away from her, letting out an impatient exhalation as his lips curled up into a knowing smile. He nodded imperceptibly. "Probably wise not to get too close. It's dark inside," he said, his tone oddly melancholic.

He withdrew his arm and Ginny instantly felt a rush of cold in its absence, causing her to miss his touch despite herself. Zabini took a few steps away from her, then stopped again.

"The war's over Weasley...but if you want to keep fighting…I'm game." His mocking tone had returned.

She turned around just in time to see the back of his white shirt disappearing around the tapestry. It took a few moments for Ginny's heartbeat to return to normal.

And it was then that she realised that, despite it only lasting ten minutes or so, the altercation with Zabini was the longest she'd gone without thinking about Harry Potter since the day the 'Chosen One' had died.

* * *

The problem, Ginny thought to herself for probably the thousandth time in the last eleven months and thirteen days, was this: the Boy-Who-Lived wasn't fucking living anymore, was he?

It had taken Ginny a long time to believe Harry was dead. When he'd collapsed in the Great Hall along with Voldemort, his body limp and lifeless, she hadn't believed it. When he'd been taken away with the other corpses and Madam Pomfrey had insisted that "he's gone and there's nothing that can be done", she hadn't believed it. When they'd been planning the funeral and she'd sat staring out the window of the Burrow - staring but not seeing - she hadn't believed it. Because he'd died and come back once already, hadn't he? And survived the killing curse _twice_, hadn't he? She kept asking hopefully - desperately.

But when they'd finally buried his body, she'd had to believe it. And then the tears had come. She'd cried and cried, for Harry and Fred and the others, as if she could cry them back. And then the tears had suddenly stopped, surprisingly abruptly, as if she'd run out of them. She hadn't thought that could happen, that tears could dry up like a river bed in a drought.

The numbness had descended then and Ginny had welcomed it, because it was so much easier to not feel anything. The gap Harry left was like a huge, gapping black abyss and the things Ginny tried to fill it with just fell into it, echoing and rattling around into nothing. It was only now, nearly a year later, as the mountains and valleys that surrounded Hogwarts were coming alive with spring, that Ginny had starting to _feel_ once more. But she hadn't cried again. Not since last summer.

Ginny was jolted out her reverie by Parvati seating herself down next to her. They were in the library, a few days after the incident with Zabini, surrounded by a group of Gryffindors.

"You'll _never_ guess what I've heard!" Parvati whispered dramatically, her eyes wide as she leant conspiratorially in to the group. The Gryffindors looked at her expectantly. Since Lavender had gone, they all kindly humoured Parvati's need to gossip. "Blaise Zabini _shagged_ Daphne Greengrass in that alcove by the kitchens the other night!"

"I heard she sucked him off, not shagged him," Dean stated indifferently.

So Daphne Greengrass, that's who it'd been, thought Ginny. But she remained silent because she didn't want the others to know she'd been there. She didn't want to have to admit to her total lack of ability to stop the whole sordid affair.

"Whatever," Parvati said dismissively. "Either way, that boy's a _slut_."

"I heard he's shagged about twenty girls...has he ever been in an actual relationship?" Neville questioned.

"Nope," Parvati replied. "He doesn't do exclusivity. Or commitment."

This is what Zabini had been referring to as his 'reputation'. The handsome Slytherin was known throughout the school for his promiscuous behaviour, shameless womanising and unerringly successful seduction skills.

"Although, I have it from good sources that he's really rather _good_ at, you know, _the sex,_" Parvati continued with a mischievous smile.

"I hope you're not getting ideas Pav! He's an ex-Death-Eater-snake," Seamus admonished.

"He never took the mark," Hermione corrected, distractedly. She was the only one focusing on her studying more than the conversation.

"But still, you'd be a total traitor to go there Pav," Ron warned.

Parvati rolled her eyes. "Get down off your war hero high-horse, Ron...it would never happen...Lav would turn in her grave."

And, seemingly reassured, the group returned to their studying. But despite herself, Ginny couldn't help wondering how true the rumours were.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: This is all for you. **

_'Don't want to let you down / But I am hell bound / Though this is all for you / Don't want to hide the truth' - Demons, Imagine Dragons._

The next Friday night, Ginny found herself escaping the boisterousness of Gryffindor Common Room in favour of the expansive array of stars that could be viewed from the Astronomy Tower. She was halfway up the tower's stairs when she heard singing drifting down from above her.

_"So they dug your grave..."_

She stopped, momentarily stilled by the sound.

_"And the masquerade..."_

It was a beautiful voice - a male voice - accompanied by the gentle strumming of a guitar. As if bewitched by the song, she found her feet continuing their ascent.

"_Will come calling out…At the mess you made..." _

The lament seemed to travel right inside Ginny, through her skin, and ripple along her veins. When she reached the roof of the tower, she saw a figure sitting on the battlement walls with a guitar on his knee and his head bowed over it. Blaise Zabini. She quietly slid into the shadows at the edge of the tower, not wanting to interrupt his song.

"_Don't want to let you down…But I am hell bound…Though this is all for you…Don't want to hide the truth_..."

Zabini stopped singing, his hands falling limply over his guitar, and looked up at the night sky.

"Can you sing, Weasley?" he asked coldly.

Ginny jumped, realising she'd failed miserably at hiding herself. Zabini turned his gaze to her. She could clearly see his face in the light from the full moon but his expression was unreadable.

"No. Well. Yes, I can sing. But I can't."

She was aware she'd completely contradicted herself. But she'd been caught off-guard and, anyway, the answer was complicated. She studied Zabini, wondering whether to tell him the truth: about the demon that ran in her blood. That lay in wait in the tissue of her vocal chords. But it was against all her natural instincts. She'd been told for as long as she could remember that she had to keep it a secret. And that had been even more important when the pure-blood supremacists had started to gain power again, with their disdain and hatred of anything impure…of 'half-breeds'.

But she was curious about how Zabini would react if he were to know. And the lioness in her, the risk taker, made her say her next words.

"I can sing. I have a good voice apparently. But I shouldn't. It wouldn't be good for either of us."

Zabini continued to stare at her, his eyes shrewd. She knew she'd planted a seed in his mind and wondered if it would grow into suspicions and theories. Wondered if it already had. And if so, what he'd do the plant of truth he might now have sitting in his thoughts.

Zabini rose slowly from the battlement walls and started taking measured steps towards her, looking at her intently.

"Always watching - listening - in the shadows. Is that what you're doing now Weasley, standing on the side-lines of life?" he asked scornfully.

Indignation rose in Ginny because, even though there was truth in what he'd said, the implication in his words hinted at a cowardice in her. Which was, of course, the worst thing to accuse a Gryffindor of. She was about to snap out a retort but Zabini was suddenly so close to her - too close -and the proximity of him made her words scramble confusedly in her mind. She moved backwards, only to come up against the stone wall behind her.

His face was inches from hers, his eyes digging into hers as if trying to burrow through her thoughts. Scared of what they might unearth, she looked away from him, as he leaned towards her ear.

"Still pining after a dead boy?" The words were soft but they cut through her like knives.

She was about to push him away, but he gently placed his hands on either side of her waist, and she felt an unexpected and odd sense of safety at the feel of him holding her.

"Can you still feel his touch like you can mine?" he whispered urgently in her ear.

"No," Ginny admitted, her voice hard.

His breath ghosted over her cheek and jaw line.

"Can you still feel his breath against your skin like mine is now?" he asked quietly into her neck, causing a shiver to prickle at her spine.

"No."

He gently placed his lips on hers. It wasn't a kiss but more of a touch.

"Still feel his lips against yours?" Zabini persisted.

"No," Ginny's voice was defiant because she wasn't sure what he was trying to do with his words, and if he was somehow trying to break her, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of succeeding.

Then his eyes were digging around in hers again and to stop them - but also because she wanted it too much - she crashed her mouth onto his. He responded by biting down on her lower lip and the feeling of the sharp pain it evoked was delicious, causing her to let out a quiet moan. Then their tongues were sinking deep into each other's mouths, as if sparing with each other. It was a forceful kiss. There was nothing tender in it. But it was how Ginny wanted to be kissed because it meant she didn't have to think.

Zabini pushed his body into hers and she felt the cold stones of the tower wall pressing against her back. She reached out her hands and placed them on his chest, feeling the hard heat of him through his shirt. All the nerves in her body were pulsing for him. He moved his lips to her neck, and she tilted her head to the side, welcoming him, and he nibbled and sucked and bit there, causing waves of arousal to shoot down her body. She'd started to let out a quiet succession of moans when his mouth returned to her ear.

"You can feel _that_ though Weasley, can't you?" His voice was taunting.

A whimper was her only answer - it was all she could manage.

"How _does_ it feel? How does it feel when I kiss you?" he hissed.

"I - it - it makes me forget," was the only way she could explain it, because he'd made her mind hazy and all her words scatter.

He pulled back from her, his expression hard and eyes dark.

"This castle's already full of ghosts that won't leave, Weasley. Nobody needs you wishing for more of them to stay," he whispered bitterly.

And with that, he turned away from her, grabbed his guitar and strode towards the stairs. And Ginny found that she wasn't angry with him. Because she knew he was right. She knew she had to move on from Harry.

She just had no idea how to.

* * *

The girls got ready quietly on the morning of second May 1999. The atmosphere in their dorm was subdued and fragile. They occasionally talked.

"That looks lovely," Parvati commented on Hermione's dress at one point.

"Thanks."

Then, a little while later, "Do you think this flower in my hair's too much?" This from Parvati again.

"No...it's subtle...it looks good Pav," Ginny reassured.

"It goes really well with your sari too," Hermione added, to Parvati's appreciative smile.

Ginny knew how important this kind of talk was to Parvati. And this morning, above all mornings, she was making a special effort to try to say the words that Lavender would have said if she'd been there.

Because today was the anniversary of the battle. A year exactly since Tom Riddle had burned the life out of Harry's eyes. A year since so many others had fallen.

Remembrance Day.

The ceremony was taking place in the grounds and as they made their way there, Ginny thought hopefully that, if there was any time she was going to cry again, it would be in the next few hours.

But she didn't. Not even when George started shaking and seemed to zone out halfway through his eulogy to Fred, so that Angelina had to step up and take over. Nor later, when Ron stormed off and punched a tree trunk, yelling something incoherent and Hermione had to use magic to stop him hurting himself any further.

Ginny's dry eyes didn't go unnoticed. "It's okay to cry you know, it's not a weakness," her mother said to her at one point. Ginny bloody knew that. She craved the cathartic release that came with crying. At one point, she even scrunched up her insides and squashed her eyes shut in an attempt to squeeze some tears from them. But none came.

After her family left, and it seemed an appropriate time to disappear, Ginny decided to do the only thing that was guaranteed to make her feel anything: fly. She grabbed her Quidditch gear and headed to the pitch, but at the threshold to the girls' changing rooms, she saw that it was ankle deep in water. One of the centaurs' arrow tributes must have landed in the plumbing system and burst open the pipes. Cursing, she hurried to the boys' changing rooms. She was planning on changing quickly and they were sure to be empty at this time, on a day like today.

She dumped her bag down on a bench and hurriedly slipped off her shoes, socks and cardigan. She'd just started to unbutton her blouse when she heard it: the sound of a shower running. She stopped abruptly. Someone's probably just forgotten to turn it off, she thought, walking quietly to the communal showers.

But when she rounded the corner she was rendered motionless - again - at the sight of Blaise Zabini. He was standing under a shower with his back to her and water gushing over his head. Clearly, she hadn't been the only one who'd felt like flying today. Ginny stood for a moment, staring at the broadness of Zabini's shoulders and the curve of his back as it sloped down to -

-and then came to her senses, willed herself to move and was about to dart away when he turned around and immediately caught sight of her. Surprise flickered across his face before he tilted his head to one side, a curious smile playing at the edges of his lips. He flicked the shower off and the room was suddenly very quiet.

"The-they-there was water-" Ginny attempted to explain her presence but faltered because her eyes had caught sight of the semi-hard and not-insubstantially-sized cock that Zabini was holding in his hand. Oh Merlin. Come on Weasley, get it to-fucking-gether, she chided herself.

"There's a flood in the girls' changing rooms. I thought I'd change here. Thought it'd be empty."

There was a silence. Ginny watched as a drop of water ran down Zabini's neck. Followed it as it dipped and rose at his collar bone, before descending down his chest. And she was jealous. She was ridiculously jealous of that drop of water because she wanted to run her hand - maybe her tongue - along the exact rivulet of that droplet.

Zabini, his eyes still locked on hers, started to gently massage his cock. Ginny's lungs seemed to have forgotten how to breathe again.

"So, are you going to get changed then?" he asked softly.

"I -" What?

He nodded at her blouse. "Take it off," he demanded quietly, his voice husky.

Ginny wasn't sure what caused the powerful wave of arousal to shoot through her. The warmth of the steam that lingered in the room, Zabini's naked body, how he was touching himself, his demand - it was probably all of it. And it all meant her hands reached up and started to slowly unbutton her blouse. All the while, Zabini fixed his gaze on her chest and she could see his cock harden in his hand, hear his breathing quicken, and it all made a rush of wetness flood her knickers. She slid off her blouse and dropped it to the wet floor.

"And your skirt," he commanded calmly.

Ginny unhurriedly unzipped her skirt and pulled it down over her hips so it puddled at her feet. She was now standing barefoot in only her underwear.

"Fuck…" Zabini murmured, his gaze wandering hungrily up and down her body, as the pace of his hand increased. Ginny desperately wanted to be touching his cock instead of him, wanted to lick off the pre-come she could see glistening at the tip of it.

Then Zabini abruptly walked towards her, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her firmly and uncompromisingly. They pressed their bodies together and the feel of so much of his bare skin against hers made Ginny let out an odd kind of keening noise she didn't know she could make. He pulled back from her, casting his eyes over her body again. His gaze settled on her stomach and he glided a finger from her hip, along the curve of her waist and up to her ribs, collecting the shower water that had rubbed off on her from him.

"Sorry…I seem to have made you all wet," his voice was thick. "Have I made you all wet, Weasley?"

"Yes," Ginny breathed out.

"Can I feel how wet I've made you?"

"Yes." Yes, yes, yes.

Ginny found herself parting her legs slightly to accommodate his hand moving between them. His fingers stroked gently over her underwear.

"Fuck…you're soaking," he murmured, almost inaudibly. She whimpered in acknowledgement. He roughly moved her knickers to one side and glided his fingers along her, stopping at her clit, gently circling it with expert pressure. Ginny felt her muscles melt and her legs become weak, so she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, leaning her weight against him and moaned into his neck.

Against him she felt delicate and fragile. She could feel the muscles of his shoulders, feel the strength of him and it felt like he could shield her from the things that might hurt her. She hadn't realised she'd wanted that until now. But then she caught herself: that was all an illusion of course. She wasn't naïve. This was Blaise Zabini, slut of Hogwarts. She knew all he wanted was to fuck her, not protect her.

Which is why she couldn't bear the preliminaries. With foreplay there was intimacy, an investment; spending time on each other bodies, finding out what each other liked. It added to the delusion that things were more than they really were. Which was why she lifted her head to whisper in Zabini's ear, "Fuck me."

He moved his head, angling it so he could look her in the face, his eyes darting over it as if searching for something. Then his expression changed, as if he'd come to a decision. In a surprisingly swift succession of movements, he pulled her knickers down, placed both hands on her hips, lifted her up against the wall as she wrapped her legs around his waist, and angled himself so that he was right at her entrance. He paused, looking at her intently.

"Are you sure?" he asked, uncertainty in his eyes.

She gave him one of her blazing, defiant stares. "Don't make me have to think," she said flatly, her voice hollow.

A passing look of anguish crossed his face before he thrust up into her, filling and stretching her and it felt fucking amazing. He let out a primal groan as he did so, and it merged with Ginny's whimpering cry as her eyelids fluttered shut and she tilted her head back, just wanting to feel him. He continued his thrusting, occasionally changing his pace as if he knew exactly what her body needed, and she started to cry out to the rhythm of him moving in her. She kept her head back and eyes closed as her spine scrapped against the cold tiles, avoiding looking in his eyes because that would only make it all more intimate.

She had thought she might have felt like she was betraying Harry's memory by having sex with Zabini. Betraying her housemates, her friends, family, everything they'd fought for. But she didn't.

She realised it must be right to be this wrong with him.

As another wave of heat flooded her body, the walls of tension that had been building in her finally fell inwards in one ecstatic, delicious collapse and she was crying out - not words - something incoherent, as the waves of her orgasm coursed through her body.

But then something else was happening.

The muscles of her face were contracting, making it scrunch up in odd ways and there was a hot, stinging sensation behind her eyes. The first sob was hard and obvious. She couldn't hide it from Zabini. And then she couldn't control the second one either. He slowed his movements and, through the hot tears that had started to spill from her eyes, she saw him looking at her, aghast and horrified.

Zabini started lowering her to the floor, slipping out of her as he did so, and they tumbled clumsily onto the tiles, a mass of naked limbs. He drew Ginny to his chest in a tight embrace whilst tears poured from her, as if a dam had burst somewhere behind her eyes, and her body heaved with uncontrollable, overwhelming, wracking sobs.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: The blood's run stale**

_'They say it's what you make / I say it's up to fate / It's woven in my soul / I need to let you go.../...I want to hide the truth / I want to shelter you / But with the beast inside / There's nowhere we can hide.../...When your dreams all fail / And the ones we hail / Are the worst of all / And the blood's run stale' - Demons, Imagine Dragons._

"Hey, hey, hey, what's wrong? Did I hurt you?" Zabini asked urgently, but Ginny could only shake her head through a hiccupping sob.

He lifted her chin with his hand, forcing her to look at him. His face was full of concern. For once, there was nothing guarded in it.

"Weasley, speak to me. What's wrong?"

"Sorry. It's not you," she managed to say. "It's just - the day."

She hoped that was explanation enough. Enough to explain that it wasn't just the day but the whole year, the war and everything it took from her. It seemed to be enough, because he just drew her to the warmth of his chest again as she continued to weep. They stayed like that for some time. He didn't ask her anymore, made no demands of her. Just held her. And it felt so good - so good to cry - like a tightly coiled spring of grief and pain was unwinding and unraveling inside her. When her sobs had lessened to quiet cries, she spoke again.

"I haven't cried since last summer...I thought my tears had dried up."

"Looks like they've been storing themselves somewhere," he replied gently.

Then he followed a trail of her tears up her cheek with his lips, as if he was trying to kiss her crying away.

A little later, when the tears had finally ceased and Ginny's breathing had returned to normal, he spoke this time.

"You're part Siren, aren't you?" he asked quietly. Ginny tensed as she realised he'd guessed the truth.

Sirens: creatures who lured men with their enchanting singing voices, who took control of their minds, making them do anything to get to the source of the singing. To own it. To claim it. Whatever the cost.

"A quarter. My mother is half," Ginny responded in a resigned voice. "How did you know?"

"What you said on the Astronomy Tower, it was a bit of a giveaway. And I've seen how you always mime the school songs. And just now - I could hear it in your cries."

"What?" Ginny queried, alarmed.

"When we were fucking and you cried out…I think a little escaped from you then -"

"I didn't mean it to."

"I know."

"How did it make you…feel?"

"I just got an almost uncontrollable urge to…devour you…to fuck you so hard into that wall the tiles would crack…to _own_ you…but it was manageable…Merlin knows what would happen if you actually sang…you need to be careful Weasley," he said earnestly.

"I know…I am…sometimes it just comes out…I do try to control it…"

"I understand that…more than you know," Zabini murmured. And his comment added to Ginny's suspicions.

Because she had guessed that there was a demon in him too. And she thought she had a good idea what kind it was.

* * *

And then, after the incident in the changing rooms: nothing.

Days went by, her NEWTs got closer, but Blaise Zabini didn't come near her. Didn't even look at her. This was why she had tried her best to make the sex meaningless and tried to minimise the intimacy, so that this part would be easier. But something had changed with the tears and the embrace and the talking afterwards. And Ginny hadn't been able to control that.

So two weeks after Remembrance Day, she slipped a note into his bag, asking him to meet her in a clearing in the Forbidden Forest. She hadn't been sure if he would come, but he did, appearing through the trees, halting a few yards from her, with the familiar guarded look on his face.

"You've been avoiding me," Ginny started by accusing him. "I know, with the crying, it must have been a bit of a headfuck but…I thought we could…" She thought they could what? She didn't know. She just knew she'd needed to see him_._ In the last couple of weeks, she'd realised that it wasn't just that he helped her forget. It was that, with him, that aching black abyss that Harry had left was actually being filled.

"I told you not to get too close," he stated, his voice hard.

"What?" She didn't understand, but then remembered Parvati's words: …_doesn't do exclusivity. Or commitment_. "We - it doesn't have to be anything - mean anything -"

Zabini laughed, hard and scornful. "That's the problem. It _already_ means something. It already means too much."

She frowned, making her confusion obvious.

"You're a Weasley. I'm Blaise Zabini. Your friends hate me. Your family would too if they knew who I was. There's too much separating us. The Slytherin on the wrong side of the war, remember?"

"_Was_ on the wrong side," Ginny corrected. "And I understand now that you didn't have a choice. It's our choices that define us, not what we're born into. It's what we make of it."

He shook his head. "It's fate. It's - the darkness - it's woven in my soul." He ran his hands agitatedly over his hair, looking at her with a tormented expression. "I need to let you go."

"There's good and bad - lightness and darkness - in all of us," she said. Pleaded. It was something Harry used to say but she hadn't realised how true it was until now.

His face was sorrowful_. _

"I don't want to let you down but…but I'm _hell_ bound Ginny," he said gravely. As she heard him say her given name, she nearly stopped listening. Because she wanted him to say it again and again and again. Then he closed the gap between them, leant down and kissed her tenderly on the lips. "This is for your sake. This is all for you."

And with that, he turned and walked out of the clearing. And she couldn't tolerate it. She couldn't stand to have him walk away from her. She'd lost so much already, she couldn't bear to lose him too.

Zabini was about two trees deep into the forest when Ginny started singing.

"_Your eyes, they shine so bright_…"

Ginny sensed the Siren in her awaken and delight in being set free after years of being stifled. She sensed how it skipped and danced and cart-wheeled across the air towards Zabini, using Ginny's song as wings.

"_I want to save their light_…"

It launched itself into Zabini's ears, shimmied through his eardrum's, wrapped itself around his cochlea's, and swam into his brain through the auditory nerves.

"_I can't escape this now…"_

Racing down countless neural pathways, it blocked off numerous synapses whilst electrifying others.

_"Unless you show me how…" _

Effectively, taking control of his mind and dissolving his autonomy.

Ginny saw Zabini stop abruptly before turning slowly back to face her and start to stride towards her. As he got closer, she saw how his movements were oddly mechanical and his face expressionless. But it was his blank eyes that made her stomach turn disconcertingly as she started to regret what she'd done.

When Zabini reached her, he grabbed her roughly, spun her around so she was facing a nearby tree and placed her hands on its trunk.

"Don't move them," he hissed in her ear. His voice had an aggression she hadn't heard before.

He shoved her hips out towards him, flipped up her skirt and ran a hand gently over her arsecheeks, before sliding it down between her legs. Ginny's body was responding enthusiastically to his touch, but she was realising too late that she didn't want him like this, possessed by something else. He pushed her knickers to one side, roughly dipped a finger in her and groaned into her neck. She felt the tip of his cock sliding over her -

"Blaise," Ginny appealed to him, her voice shaking.

She didn't know if it was the use of his given name, or because the Siren's power was dissipating due to lack of song, but she sensed him still and his grip on her hip loosen.

"Blaise," Ginny said again, more firmly. With relief, she felt him withdraw his touch from her and could sense him moving backwards. She knew he'd wrestled control back from the Siren.

She turned to face him, readjusting her clothes, initially scared to look at him. When she finally did, she saw that his eyes were full of accusation.

"I thought _you_, out of _everyone_, would have more qualms about possessing someone's_mind_!" His shout was incredulous and angry. "You want me so much you'd unleash your _demon_ on me?!"

To stop the guilt engulfing her, Ginny became defensive. "It's not like you haven't unleashed _yours_ on me!" she accused back.

"What?!" he spat.

"Your _Veela_," she stated bitterly.

His expression morphed from furious to wary.

"I've _never_ willingly used my Veela powers on you." His voice was acidic. He turned abruptly and went to sit on a tree stump, his head in his hands. "How did you know?" he asked dully.

"At the risk of inflating your already no-doubt considerable ego: your body, Blaise...it's _perfect_...it's _unnatural_ how perfect it is...and the way you move…it's almost angelic…and sometimes, you just rendered me motionless and speechless, and it made me wonder…" Ginny tried to explain, as she took a few hesitant steps towards him. "I...I never noticed before...when Harry was - was alive, he was all that I could see, but over this last year...it's been impossible not to see you…"

Blaise gazed at the muddy ground. "Apparently, if someone is in love with someone else, the powers are weak or non-existent...makes sense why I could never get your attention...you only looked at me with disdain...until recently."

"I had been in love with Harry since I was eleven..."

Ginny was well aware of the past tense: _had_ _been in love with_. She felt a deep sadness at the sound of it, a sadness she knew would never leave her. But there was relief at having voiced it too.

She walked the last few steps to Blaise and sat down tentatively next to him.

"How long - how long have you been trying to get my attention?"

Blaise looked at her resignedly. "Since fifth year. The way your hair flew behind you like a burning flame when you played Quidditch…your bravery when you rebelled against Umbridge… your skin the colour of milk…it was fucking hard not to notice you."

There was a pause as Ginny took this in. "Well, you've got it now," she said.

"Huh?"

"My attention. You've caught it and coveted away somewhere and I think I might never get it back." Blaise's eyes softened at her words. "How much Veela is in you?"

"I'm half Veela…my mother is one…no wings but…the other stuff is there…"

"So that's how you've managed to become the stud of the school," Ginny remarked drily.

"What?! No!" He was angry again. "I don't shag around because of my Veela powers...but _despite_ them. I never use them. I _actively_ don't use them. I want to know that people like me, people want me, because of _me_, not what the Veela in me can do."

"But…when it's just casual sex, people aren't shagging you because they know the _real_ you anyway…" Ginny trailed off because she didn't think she was explaining herself very well.

Blaise shrugged, gazing again at the dark earth. "I don't know how else to be. It's all I've ever known. Watching my mother all my life...she's used her Veela powers purposely and shrewdly, leaving mostly pain in her wake. I know she did a lot of it for me but…I don't want to be like her." He turned and looked at Ginny intently.

Ginny let this roll around her mind, thinking of the times she'd seemed to have been rendered mute and motionless by him. The effect he'd seemed to have on her was so powerful, she'd been sure it had been his Veela. But she believed Blaise when he said he'd never willingly used his powers on her. Which meant that it had just been him - just Blaise - that had that effect on her. She reached a hand out and stroked her fingers down his cheek.

"I can try and show you, Blaise" she said gently, luxuriating in the sound of his given name on her tongue. "How else to be. If-if you want me to, that is…I'm sorry I used my Siren on you. I shouldn't have done it. But…maybe they're not just demons. Maybe they're both angels _and_ demons - two sides of the same galleon - it depends how we use their power."

"The lightness and darkness in all of us…" he murmured, echoing her words back to her.

"Yes," she agreed. "And I'd rather have the darkest parts of you than nothing at all."

He gave her a shy smile before leaning towards her and capturing her lips in a warm, gentle kiss.

* * *

They met every day after that, sometimes more, and always in secret. Over time, as they struggled through their NEWTs, they fucked less and talked more. In an old broomshed one afternoon, after their Muggle Studies exam, they were lying naked in each other's arms.

"I stopped believing it around fourth year," Blaise was saying. "All the pureblood bullshit." He'd explained this to Ginny many times already. She had believed it the first time, but she allowed him this need to repeat it. "I'm not sure if I believed it before then anyway. But that's when I decidedly rejected it…it was teaching me to hate a part of myself."

"The Veela part?"

"Yeah...my mum only told me about that when I was fourteen...that's when I started questioning everything. You know," Blaise continued bitterly. "It's painful learning that the ones we hail, the ones we look up to, are actually the worst of all. Leaves you lost, unanchored, not sure what to believe anymore." He looked down at his inner forearm and ran a finger over a vein. "This fucking blood that's supposed to be so pure...it ran stale a long time ago."

Ginny took his arm and kissed the inside of his wrist. "The blood that runs in you - whatever the mix of it- it seems pretty fresh to me," she said with a smile and lowered herself softly down on his chest, like snow falling on dark earth.

And she sometimes wished, like snow with the earth, that she could melt into him.

* * *

A week before the end of term, they were sat leaning against a log in the forest. Blaise was staring thoughtfully at something on the ground and Ginny followed his gaze to where both their school ties lay, haphazardly entwined, from when they had discarded them earlier.

"You know, Dumbledore once said he thought they made the hat sort too soon," Blaise mused.

"Hmm…I used to love being a Gryffindor…but after everything, I can't help thinking these ties, the Hogwarts houses, they create more hostility than anything else."

"They're bullshit," Blaise agreed.

Then, spontaneously and in unison, they both raised their wands, pointed them at their ties and a different kind of transfiguration spell burst from the tip of each. Their ties jumped abruptly in the air and slowly floated back down to the ground. The two of them froze for a moment, unsure of what their combined spells had done, before leaning tentatively forward to retrieve their ties.

Instead of lines of red and gold, Ginny's tie had repeated stripes of red, silver, green and gold through it. Blaise's was exactly the same.

"We've somehow…_merged_ them," Ginny said dubiously.

Blaise chuckled. "G_ryfferin_ ties," he concluded, and Ginny grinned. "Guess we should change them back?"

"No," Ginny stated decisively. And she took the tie from his hands, flipped up his shirt collar and secured it on him. Then she put the other tie on herself.

"You want to wear these? In school?" Blaise asked uncertainly.

"Yes," Ginny stated firmly, giving him a reassuring smile. "For as long as we can get away with it."

"People will ask…they'll ask what it means?"

"And I'll tell them."

"About me?"

"About us." Ginny stood up.

"So does this mean…exclusivity…you-you want to be with me? Like that?" Blaise asked, hope hinting at the edges of his voice.

"Yes. If that's what you want?" Ginny held out a hand to him and, taking it, he rose to his feet as well.

"Yes! Yes, that's what I want," Blaise said emphatically.

"Good. Me too." Ginny beamed before leaning up and kissing him firmly on the lips.

And so they walked out the clearing with their hands tightly clasped, wearing their 'Gryfferin' ties, and strolled towards the castle.

* * *

**A/N:** I'd love to know what you think! Comments, thoughts, con-crit - it's all cherished and treasured! Thank you.


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